Star Trek: Gods of Mischief
by heybenedicthowyoudoin
Summary: Set after the Avengers. Khan escapes and travels back in time to prevent his crew being frozen, whilst Loki is marooned on Earth. Loki feels abandoned and envies the spotlight that Khan has with the Avengers. Both are kind of hard and badass and deny having emotions but yeah we all know that never works out. Hinted Kirk/Spock. Rated M for future chapters (sorry)
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

It all happened very fast. That's what everyone would remember. Nobody saw it coming, but then again, they never saw anything coming. There was no longer any surprise; the entire of New York had been engulfed in metal crustaceans an acre high, the sky had turned dark with ships and time portals and aliens.

There was always one constant; death.

There was something very human about death, that no matter how unimaginable and unthinkable everything escalated to, there was always death, the sobering reality that everything relates to.

Nothing lives forever.

No matter how hard it tries.

Year - 2255.5

12:00

Security Sector, Starfleet Headquarters

'How long has that been flashing?'

One Starfleet officer, his coffee-stained recognition badge labelled 'Simmons' who, at that moment, was so reclined on his chair that he was almost vertical, woke up and wheeled himself to the desk.

'Um, I dunno. Alarm, for the vault under here? Top security, isn't it? Ah, someone will have stood on some wire. Jim Kirk went crazy with all the security, what do they keep down there?'

The second guard flicked one more worried glance in the alarm's direction, which was flashing silently on the console with the words 'Security Breach'.

'I dunno, but lets hope to God it doesn't get out, whatever it is.'

Simmons rolled his eyes but out from his colleague's view, he bit his lip in concern.

'Do you think we should-'

Simmons hesitated, fighting the rising panic in his throat.

'No, Parker. No I don't. I think I should go back to sleep.'

'You're supposed to be on duty.' Parker pointed out.

'Yes, yes I am. But I'm asleep. So, if you are concerned, as my second-in-command, it is your duty to sort it out.'

Parker sighed, got up and pressed in the code for the doors, the stale air shifting as the metal slid open. His eyes darted around, and adrenaline pulsed. His mind raced. He pushed a shaking hand into his pocket, pulling out his phaser and nervously turning it from stun to kill.

12:14

Commander Riker's office, London

'Woah, woah. Slow down. What happened?'

'I should've noticed, all the alarms were silent, someone must have got into the system so we wouldn't notice.'

'What did you see?'

Parker breathed in, desperate for some kind of sense to come out.

'There was one open, sir. All the frozen people, there was one pod open, and the guards were dead, their heads, oh god, their heads had been crushed. And I ran back to my office and Simmons... there was blood everywhere. He took Simmons' phaser.'

12:31

James T Kirk's bedroom, New-New York

'Jim?'

Jim didn't care. He was asleep. Bones' urgent voice on his answer-phone shattered his pleasant but slightly confusing dream about Spock having a twin sister.

'Yeah, Bones, what do you want?' he slurred, slamming a hand onto his answerphone, the image of Bones's concerned face projected up in a hologram next to Jim's bed.

'It's about Khan.'

Jim was suddenly very much awake. His mind, like everyone else's whom the news had touched, began to race.

'What about him?' he asked, his calm voice wavering.

'He... He escaped, Jim.'


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Loki's grasp was slipping.

Yes, he had been able to escape his brother, Thor. It wasn't difficult, especially when he is so skilled at deception and his brother considers Loki his only blind spot.

Yes, his brother and the Avengers had been chasing after him, but his Chitauri army scattered across the galaxy in tiny pieces and any loyalties to the Frost Giants he had were decimated. He was alone and the only thing he could do was run, and though he could run rings around the Avengers which amused him, they were losing interest.

After the events of New York 2012, his somewhat embarrassing defeat by three lycra-cladded weirdos, a freak in an iron suit, a green monster and his irritating brother, he had been taken captive. While Thor was off fighting some elf or another, he had managed to wriggle free, and there had been eclectic chaos at first but after a while nobody else seemed to care.

He needed to be the centre of attention, and they were discarding him like some used toy, just because he posed no threat. Thor pursued him more emphatically than the rest, but even then his conviction wavered. His need to force his brother to justice had seemed to depreciate and there was little for him to do but just let Loki run away, though it set his teeth on edge.

So now, Loki was stuck on the planet, nobody in Asgard would bring him back and nobody on Earth could catch him, so he was just living off of the back-street whisperings of fear and how 'the god who attacked us is still in the streets'. How the mighty had fallen, when Loki would grin if a New York gangster dealing meth would refuse to meet down a back alley in case 'that pyscho god is there'. It was nowhere near enough to dull the pain of failure or make him feel as if it had all been worthwhile, but just in that split second, he wielded the power he had imagined he would.

He was bored, poking people with sticks and seeing how far they run, his favourite was to conjure up seven (often more) holograms of himself and see which one the police would think was real. He terrorised the police more than anyone else, because he knew they fueled the rumours.

There was little point in killing everyone, Loki always thought killing was in such bad taste and always so messy. He saved it only for on special occasions. The fear was more masterful, like a puppet show using the strings of human emotion. As dull as the human race were, they did fantastic things when backed into a corner and forced to dance.

His favourite pastime on Midgard was thievery. Houses, shops, banks, his mirages proved most useful then. He was legendary, though his trademark was his glinting grin directly at the CCTV which he knew made them jump, when the police were watching it back. They saw this broken shell in grey, and suddenly it would turn, the light catching a pale face like a mask, and a manic grin would break out across his features before everything was gone, the guards were killed if they were in the way. They grew to fear that face; more so because there was ambiguity surrounding if he was the one that decimated New York, would it be them next? Is he going to kill us all? That smile was all the answer they got. The smile from this master of trickery. One thing was sure, if he was a god, he didn't look much like one.

Physically, Loki was a wreck. His Asgardian armour was long gone. It was torn from him by Thor, and never allowed back. Loki had to admit he missed it; its thick and tight leather which bound him hard, leaving him virtually invulnerable; it was bulletproof, it was impenetrable; but most of all, it was beautiful. Loki liked a show, he liked appearance and dazzle. He liked his armour.

It wrapped around his sinewy muscle and opal skin, thin enough to allow him comfort in the dance he performed around his prey, the artful footwork and magnetic contours he painted with his limbs as he flung himself at his opponents in battle, leaving them blinking and bleeding, their minds a flurry of glistening in gold and green and black.

Now, he wore grey. Dark grey, he blended in with the mulch, the concrete, the buildings, the sky. When he carried out his heists, this meant he was untraceable, a shadow in amongst a forest, which at first had made him dizzy with power, but now the grey was almost as infamous as him. The god in grey. Loki didn't want that to be his epitaph. He was much more extravagant than grey. He wanted to be the golden god, the beautiful god. Earth had taken its toll on him, and now he was grey.

His eyes, once a glimmering, stunning blue, that seduced everyone with their raw energy, the potential energy to do bad things, the windows to his soul that showed just how capable he was of splattering his cruelty across creation, were now darkened around the outside, sunken, tired, drawn. He no longer acted like a god, so he no longer looked like one. He was still more perfect than any Midgardian could ever be, his skin, taut over his cheekbones; his lips, thin and kissable; his body, lean and elegant; his gaze dark and heavy with lust and anger. He was still beautiful on the outside, but it was all exhausted, monochrome, unappreciated. Loki had his moment, glittering in the sun as the fiercest, most feared being on the planet. It was short lived. Now his appearance payed the price, and his self neglect and vanity conflicted to create this worn, beautiful creature which stalked down streets in a grey hoodie.

He needed a miracle.

July 19th, 2013

London

The news reports didn't come until after the the ship was first spotted, the press were desperately subdued by the government who tried to cover it up, but with rumours of a spaceship invading Earth circulating around the web and a black smudge across the sky visible to the whole of Britain, there was little they could do.

It demanded attention, the ship kept getting larger and larger in the sky as it came closer to Earth. After a few hours, most people had gotten over the original screaming fit and running around in circles and had gone into a reclusive state. The first news report began to flood into every T.V., people began to panic again, saying the aliens were here, the typical knee-jerk response of humanity.

There was still the odd taxi still working, but most people were glued to the telly for updates. Very British. The more industrial shops were still open, and Dixon's had all twelve varying sizes of screen in the display window showing BBC News. The streets were eerily quiet.

Loki wandered around in amongst the desolation, and noticed before anything that he hadn't been bumped into or pushed around, so he raised his head and noticed the lack of Midgardians. He glanced incredulously around at the empty streets, the litter dancing around in the wind was a sad visual metaphor for tumbleweed. It was no fun being a God if there was no-one to torment.

He passed Dixon's, the 'breaking news' banner catching his attention, and he pulled down his hood and watched intently, expecting to see his latest heist at Pentonville Prison.

Loki looked up, for the first time in a while. He looked up into the sky and at about the height of the sun around 3 o'clock, there was in fact a dark smudge, slowly burning a trail across the sky. The ship wasn't of human design, not in this time period anyway. The black against the white overcast sky was hard to look away from, and as a cloud wafted over it, Loki half expected it to vanish. It did not disappoint, as it appeared again; the cloud scurried away like all the humans on the street.

He knew what it was. He knew straight away, this wasn't some badly orchestrated and underprepared alien invasion, or a nearby ship that had been lead astray. This was someone's design. Someone wanted the planet in crisis. They wanted the human race to quiver in fear.

The theatrics, the slow steady fall of the ship, enough to make the impact take at least a few days, enough for the fear to really build, until there was hysteria. This wasn't just well executed, this was the most perfect example of puppeteering that Loki had ever seen. There wasn't anything particularly terrifying about the ship, it wasn't very big. It didn't appear to have huge weapons. Whether or not this mystery pilot had heard about the attack on New York or not, it couldn't have come at a more opportune time. The human race had started to clamber back up, but it was still vulnerable; any interspace weaponry had not yet been developed and the general feeling amongst people was still paranoia and dread about aliens. Enough that, just the sight of a little black ship in the sky, was enough to force people indoors and glue themselves to the TV which streamed conspiracy theories and hoax accusations at them.

That was the first time Loki remembers really being impressed. Even he hadn't been able to clear the streets, despite Chitauri destroying buildings in New York left right and centre, people still somehow managed to filter in, like a swarm of ants.

He grinned at the thought of people running around at SHIELD, trying to band the Avengers together again.

He decided if he had the chance again, long-awaited and impending doom was the best way to do things, and as he glanced up at the ship, he felt a pang of jealousy and resentment. The Avengers were probably rallying round an equal amount to this tiny ship than they were at his colossal, unforgettable assault on New York.

A vicious grin radiated over his features when it dawned on him.

He would get on that ship.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Loki's favourite method of deception was to project images of himself, completely realistic in every way other than slight blinking and blurring under careful scrutiny, like a dimming light from a bulb. Deception relies on belief, and once it is known the projections aren't real, they appear less and less realistic to the viewer.

He could project them almost anywhere he had already been, as he needed to picture the scene and himself in it. He could physically control the projections as if they were him; multiple projections took a bit more effort and planning, with less complicated movement, but the effect was always more majestic and shocking than just the one.

He used this particular method for his heists, but he only needed the one projection to bother the Avengers at SHIELD. Admittedly, he could only project for a certain amount of time, as they could trace his neuropathic connection to his real body and locate him; however, it was still a useful way of getting quick updates from SHIELD, whether or not they wanted to admit information or not. Recently, there was little resistance to giving him information, and Loki had begun to look a bit desperate, fizzling into view every other day, asking after Thor. Natasha Romanoff was by far the least interested, now hardly even looking up when he blinked into existence and starting bothering the nearest agent to his spawn point.

His many frosty conversations with her were the most entertaining to him. The others at SHIELD were dim, obvious; even Stark, with all his charm and charisma, was predictable. The Black Widow was equally as clever as him, if not more so; this meant a real challenge to Loki's resources. He had to pull out the big guns for Agent Romanoff.

Knife in hand, Natasha was prizing a bullet out of the heel of her stiletto, though had a gun ready as always, which Loki discovered as he found his projection staring down the barrel of a handgun.

He raised an eyebrow, and as she registered who he was, she lowered her gun instantly, her face ironed out into one of complete impassiveness. She sat back down and returned to her stiletto.

Loki rolled his eyes.

'Apparently, you have a fantastically more interesting target than me.'

She didn't bother looking up. 'You're still a priority, Loki, I assure you.'

'Oh, you do, Miss Romanoff? How pleasant. Who is this outlawed ruffian then, does his spaceship have more shiny buttons than mine?'

'You don't have a spaceship.' she replied flatly.

'How do you know that? I could have an extensive, bloodthirsty Chitauri army prepared to invade and decimate Earth right now.'

She sighed.

'I'm sure we would've heard about it, you're incapable of keeping your plans a secret.'

'You're avoiding the question, who is he and why are you so fascinated by him?'

'I have no reason to tell you and I won't.'

'Is he more dangerous than me?'

There was an awkward silence. Natasha knew confirming this would drive Loki and his 6 year old child mentality to do something worryingly serious to heal his wounded ego. She pulled out her final bullet and laid her knife on her desk, dropping her shoe with a clatter. She looked up at him with bored contempt.

'I don't know, I haven't met him.'

'Ah, so someone has.'

'Perhaps.'

'Who?'

'Isn't there some easily influenced primitive alien race you could be declaring yourself leader of, Loki?'

'If you won't tell me who he is, I'll find out myself.'

'Seeing as that is what we are trying to do too, I suppose it'll be a nice little race for you, Loki. Have fun.'


End file.
